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PLM Innovation Panel: The Future of PLM Business Models

PLM Innovation 2012 in Munich is over. It was a great event, gathered about 250 people and 20+ companies on the exhibition floor. On the 2nd day, I was delighted to moderate a panel discussing future PLM business models. The idea of the panel was to have an opportunity to discuss modern PLM business trends. I had a privilege to work with four amazing panelists - David Sherburne of Carestream Health, Leon Lauritsen of Minerva, Richard Murawka of PTC and Grant Rochelle of Autodesk. Please find slideshare presentation with my questions. Below, some of my notes that I took after the session.

The tone was placed by David Sherburne. David stated that vendors needed to share data and enable re-use of components. His opinion that most of the companies implementing “multiple donuts,” and it is very hard to co-exist. Amazingly enough, vendors confirmed that this is the most reasonable way. In my view, vendors sound less peaceful when customers are asking them in the “sales” mode (compared to discussion panel mode).

Do It Yourself (DIY) PLM and CoIT

The conversation about DIY was mostly about two trends “cloud” and “mobile”. Autodesk has an opportunity to say again that new Autodesk PLM on the cloud will soon revolutionize the PLM market, and services will be available to co-exist with the software products and modules on premises. In addition to that to topic of “complexity” was raised by PTC in a context of choosing “right tools for a job”. The last one make sense. However, in my view, it is not answering the question of how to address to the problem of smaller manufacturing companies.

Communities, Crowdsource and Open Source

Crowdsource is still a topic that needs to be better understood. I don’t feel comfortable talking a lot about it. There are multiple trends and options around the crowdsourcing. In my view, most of the vendors are in “learning mode”. Community and open source merged into a signle discussion. PTC mentioned open-source as a way for them to decrease the cost of solution by embedding new software. At the same time, Aras Cor. promoted their vision of Enterprise Open Souce and discussed how it affects development by introducing “product roadmap crowdsourcing” with the customer’s ability to vote for specific features in the roadmap.

Cloud and Autodesk PLM

I clearly didn’t want to miss the topic of the cloud and Autodesk. During the last AU, Autodesk made a very bold statement that Autodesk cloud PLM will be x10 time cheaper compared to traditional PLM offering. On contrary, the position of PTC is that we are not comparing “apples to apples” and there is no single definition of PLM. The hint was that Autodesk probably delivers “a different PLM”. In my view, cloud is a clear disruption. However, it will be interesting to see how Autodesk will face all cloud PLM challenges. However, the operational cost to deliver cloud PLM solution will be a fraction of today cost of traditional business. So x10 multiplier can become real.

What is my conclusion? It was great discussion. I hope to see video recording soon. I can see a significant amount of disruption in the market of PLM. Combined with many opportunities, it is an interesting time to watch. Stay tuned and speak your mind…